Lune
by Blaquerose
Summary: Negi had never dared to desire the moon, and now that he had bathed in its intoxicating sea...he wondered why he did not. Or, perhaps it was not the moon that he never dared to desire. NegiKotaro


Summary: Lune qui là-haut s'allume sur les toits de Mahora vois comme un homme peut souffrir d'amour

_A/N: This was a story I wrote not too long ago at the request of a friend of mine, who was complaining about the lack of Negi/Kotaro pairings out there (A pairing I love as well x3). I plan on writing more chapters to this story, but perhaps not until I can regain my interest and tone for this particular ficcy. Read and review, please._

**Moon**

Negi was never one to care for the alluring shower of moonbeams that rained down over the dorm rooms and sleeping occupants of the overly extravagent Mahora Junior High School. He had never put thought to bathing, dancing, prancing, laughing, _enjoying_ _himself _in a euphoria that was the velvetine milk from the teet of _La Lune_'s bosom. He never attempted to fathom the idea of tiring under that solitary rock, and allowing her to pass warmth through him as his consciousness faded into sweet, sweet undone upon the concrete - or better, the sun beaten shingles of the maroon colored roofs. He could not imagine the sensation of being completely immersed in the light of that beautiful cresent - or, on this night, orb.

That is, until he heard a howling from his outside of his window.

It did not wake him up suddenly, but wake him it did. He thought it was a spectre of his dream, or perhaps the memory of a lost pup from his childhood - which was too fogged with his will of living up to his surname to carry any rememberance of a dog of any lovable sort. Then, once it dawned upon his subconscious that is was not some ghostly surrogate, he sought to ignore it. He buried his face deep within the cool catacomb of his pillow and beckoned silence.

Silence did not answer his call.

Grudgingly, hopelessly, tiredly, Negi consented to the call of the wild and wondered as he turned over and stared at his ceiling: what manner of dog had such lungs that he could hear him so loud, seeking him in his slumber and tearing him away so very...unpleasantly?

He thought of Kotaro. He thought of his pale face and charcoal colored eyes. His lips which were oddly plump, considering his male connotation, and his dog status. Still, as Negi thought of him, a small smile found home upon his lips. Soon, though, it dissapeared.

_I shouldn't have to retreat like this..not in my own head._

And he was right, Negi told himself. Why, it was not his fault that he felt such things. It was a manner of something he could not control. He could not help whom he sought, desired, wanted -

_Bu-bump._

A warm shock passed through Negi's chest, and he found himself clutching at his breast, which held his locked up heart that was so openly protesting its imprisonment in its boney rib cage. A pained gasp had escaped his lips, and he closed his eyes. His lips tightened.

_Oh..Kotaro.._

Who was Negi trying to fool? He was only a ten-year-old boy. Such things were not normal to feel - he had done his studies. Through a flushed face and gritted teeth, he suffered through sexual education from his sister. He knew well that though a male's body is able to function sexually as early as eight years old (the authoress reminds her reader that this is a ball-park figure, and urges you to focus on the matter at hand), such stirrings were usually uncommon until mid-to-late teenage years. And, what was more was, the secondary sexual organs were like a fleshy key to a fleshy lock.

A man to a woman. The furrow to the plow. There was no lock and key between man and man. Or, in this case..boy and boy.

By this time, Negi had released his pent up breath. Slowly, he urged his tired body to fight gravity's oppressing pin and move upward. Twice, it lost the battle, but eventually won the war, and he was able to elevate himself to a 90 degree angle. He crawled over Asuna tenderly, so as to not wake her, and fiddled with the latches until he had successfully opened the window. Had Negi taken into account then the sound of his stirring, he would have realized that there was no longer a dog's cry in the distance.

His escape from that stuffy room was nimble, as well as his descent from the ledge onto the rooftop. His re-sealing of the window was superb - absolutely flawless. He smirked to himself, and wondered breifly if this was an olympic sport. He could easily bring home the gold.

Maybe the silver - through his chuckling, he grew careless and slipped on a shingle.

Summer nights were often warm, but this evening held a formidable frost to its bite. He ran his hands up and down his wool-clothed arms as he looked from rooftop to rooftop, half hopeful that he would spot -

"Negi?"

It was then that Negi found himself dissapointed in his ability to bring home even a silver medal. He almost destroyed an entire square of panels as he tripped from surprise.

"Kah-kotaro-kun!!"

The young dog stood there, sihloutted by the moonbeams that only semi-penetrated his glossy raven hair. He wore his usuals - a white shirt with black pants and coat, though he was without his toothy, cocky grin. Instead, he sported an even better look which was indescribable. It would be nay impossible to portray the image of his elegantly black brow cocked over his (left) charcoal colored eye as his lips formed a small pout. One ear quirked to the sky as the other lay dropped, imitating the fluid motion of his eyebrows. His hand was perched upon his hip, which had swung with his weight slightly as his other hand lay warm in his pocket, pressed against his thigh. Soon, a smirk formed on his lips and a mirth was borne to those charcoal orbs. He withdrew that hand from his pocket. A slender, clawed finger pointed to Negi square in the chest (the young mage could picture a bull's eye over his _thum-thum-thumping heart_). Perfect lips parted and spoke Negi's name. "_Negi-kun..._" It stung the boy's ears, and his face blossomed with the color of a rose. "Is that a onesie..?"

Negi was flabbergasted and confused. Onesie? Onsie? What in the name of whatever diety ruled this earth was a onesie? Dumbfounded, the boy stared as his doggish friend, whose grin had grown to a length to challenge that of a cresent moon. Soon, he burst into laughter that weakened his knees. Kotaro stumbled, and fell, writhing upon the maroon colored panels and clutching his sides, crying out for dear mercy. It was only then that Negi realized what his friend had meant. Kotaro-kun was referring to his pajamas. In his haste to find the source of the howl, he had not taken into account that he was wearing his most favorite - and secret - PJ's. The ones that only Asuna and Konoka knew about.

It was an entire body pajama suit, red with yellow ducks skipping merrily around his stomach, and a large one nestled on his chest. Negi, colored red with shame, lowered his head and sighed depressingly as Kotaro's laughter roared in his ears. He wished he had some manlier pajamas, but he couldn't help it if he still had an odd affection for his onesie.

He couldn't pretend like he didn't care what Kotaro thought of his attire. The truth was: he did. It was written all over his face in red.

"Come on, Negi-kun..I'm guessing you can't sleep either, eh?"

The mage noticed that while he was occupied by his stupor of self-pity, Kotaro had nestled himself on the rooftop, sitting cross-legged and beckoning him to his side. Intruiged, interested, though understandably intimidated, he decided to take him up on his offer, and sat down next to his loyal friend, who was then preoccupied with the moon.

There was a silence between them. To the reader, this may sound awkward, taking into account Negi's confused feelings and the afformentioned discussion of Negi-kun's yellow-ducky onesie, but to him...it was a nice silence. He could not speak for Kotaro, but he could very well speak for himself on this one.

Negi turned his gaze from Kotaro (who was a black and white haze to him, without the confirmation of his glasses), and looked up to the moon. He never understood how a rock in the distance the size of your thumb could get Kotaro so riled up as to howl. He did not understand it then, either. He could hear yips caught in his companion's throat, as well as the eager twitching of an eager tail. It was as if Kotaro was so caught up in the essence of the moon...that he had to remind himself to keep composed while Negi was present. He had seen him act the same, when graced by particularly hyper-active squirel with a tail so very bushy, he was sure it wiggled so to entice a teased Kotaro-kun to play.

Negi laughed. He had to; Kotaro was too cute.

The boy in question turned to Negi with a cocked brow and lips half-cocked into a smirk. His expression was not angry or suspiscious, but coy, cunning, and had a hint of _debonair flair_ that one would not expect in a ten-year-old boy. Perhaps it was his frequent visits to the age of sixteen? Or, his adventures around older women? Or, was Negi's maturity overflowing its gauntlet and spilling into his? Negi considered all of these breifly, but surmised it in the end to be the gleam of the moon off of his porcelin white skin and glossy black hair.

"You laughin' at me?" questioned the young doggish boy, quirking his claw-nailed thumb at himself. His voice sounded threatening, but his smile betrayed his intentions. "_I_ should be the one laughing."

Negi blushed. He realized this conversation was going downhill, and another mentioning of his onesie might send him into spiralling dispair (as spiraling a dispair a ten year old can land himself in, anyway). He laughed nervously and said quickly, "No, no. I was just thinking about a joke Konoka told me earlier! It was pretty funny." 

"What was it about?"

The mage was quick to respond, "You would have had to have seen the anime."

"You don't think I take breaks from my training every now and again?" Kotaro quirked a brow, his lower lip portruding slightly in a suspisious pout.

After a moment's hesitation, Negi picked up again. "Well...no, I didn't mean to say that." Though it was appearing to backfire on him, Negi was still glad for the change of subject. "But I've never heard you even mention Naruto before, so I - "

Abruptly, the raven-haired boy's tail and ears twitched excitedly, obviously stimulated by the title of the anime, or an invisable hyperactive squirrel. It must have been the aformentioned, thought Negi, because if it was invisable...how would Kotaro be able to spot it? "Did you say Naruto?" He continued without haste, not caring for Negi's response. "I love that show! Did you see the episode with the - " Kotaro made a wide hand gesture in a swooping motion and an appropriate sound affect. To many, this would have been insane hand-signs, but to Negi, it made perfect sense.

"Oh, yeah!" said the boy, as if reminded of something long gone. "And - and - when she did the - "

"And he used his - with the - with the - _the thing!!_ "

"And she was clueless - "

"And she _fell_ for it!!"

"But when she _won - "_

"I couldn't _believe_ it!"

The two boys laughed, having understood one another perfectly in recalling whatever event they were describing, and having a ball doing so. As mature as the two of them could appear to other persons, they were still ten-year-old boys at heart, and behaved as such to the surprise of a surprising amount of people. They talked for what seemed to be hours into the night until their throats were sore and their imaginations broadened by the other's. They went on to discuss other animes and mangas that they had time to catch up on in their spare time, and when one would come across a title that one was beginning and the other finished ("Nooo!!" a frustrated Negi covered his ears flat against his palms," I don't want to know who Keitaro picks - let me read it!!"

Kotaro, equipped with a devilish smirk, then replied, "But don't you want to know that he gets married to Na - "

"_Lalalalalalalaaaah!!!_")

- the other would tease him, and later spoil the ending anyway.

Negi enjoyed this talk with Kotaro, and wondered when the last time they had reveled in such a pleasant, if not quirky, discussion was. He glanced at Kotaro, whose head was so pregnant with colorful images of good guys with guns and bad guys with toothy grins, that he had to lay down and give himself a few moments of peace and quiet. A thing mirrored in the poor child-teacher, who was beginning to feel the effects of fatigue setting around his eyelids. He rubbed at them furiously, refusing to allow himself the refuge of sleep. His heart had stopped _thum-thum-thumping_ so painfully in his chest long ago, and liked the feeling of sitting with the _inu_ boy without distraction. Internal, or _ex_ternal.

"Hey...Negi-kun..."

_Bu-bump._ Negi spat an oath inwardly as he clutched for his chest - for an English gentleman never swears aloud.

"...what do you think of the girls in your class?"

Negi blinked, not glancing back at Kotaro. Instead, he kept his amber-colored eyes upon the fully waned moon. Negi had never dared to desire the moon, and now that he had bathed in its intoxicating sea...he wondered why he did not. Or, perhaps it was not the _moon_ that he never dared to desire.

Who was he fooling? He was only ten.

"They're my students." said Negi. "And I feel toward them student-teacher affections. Nothing more..." His voice trailed off as it followed his thoughts. This may be a good point in the story for which the reader notices that when asked by any other person, he would be oblivious. But, when inquired by Kotaro, knew exactly what Negi meant to ask.

And Kotaro then replied,"..girls are weird." and left it to silence. Not just the moment, the roof. The night. Negi. He left Negi to silence, alone on the rooftop, though he did not notice it until he turned to gaze upon the wanton figure of Kotaro's laying form and relay to him a question. When he saw no one there, the cold that Kotaro's prescence had warded off suddenly pushed itself upon Negi at all sides. He felt it, and was affected by it. He immediatly elected to go inside and find recluse in dream.

As he lay next to the warmth of Asuna's body and embraced it, trying to expel the cold that crept under his skin, he felt somewhat...starved. He felt as if he had glimpsed a great feast, and was only spared an apple to sate him. He tried not to let his thoughts wander of what could have - _should_ have been, but wander they did. His body was affected.

The next morning, he was greeted by Asuna's banshee screeching, and Konoka's motherly aide to an embarrassed and somewhat confused Negi.

"I swear," said Asuna to Konoka, glancing at Negi with a dirty glare, "he's like a dirty old man!! Him and that - that - Kotaro aren't normal ten-year-old's at all!!"

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_A/N: Do you think I should continue writing? Review and tell me, because I'm really wondering if its worth the effort._


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